Fire Ecology Annual Report: Calendar Year 2010; Big Cypress National Preserve

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A summary of fire ecology activities and program information for the Park/network including fire effects plot workload, staffing, management objectives and monitoring results, and planning, fire monitoring, communications, and research. Also included are staff accomplishments/areas of focus, future program direction and other optional information (e.g. data analysis graphics or presentations, annual highlights, publications, program challenges, unique solutions to problems, collaboration, photographs of monitoring/fire activities, and suggestions on FFI). The Fuels/Fire effects crew at Big Cypress National Preserve had a busy year. In CY 2010 we completed 24 prescribed fire projects for a total 50,000 acres. When not burning or doing burn prep a vast amount of time was spent preparing and completing the 2010 Fire Management Plan and two new burn plans. 64 pre and post burn plots were visited and a new plot database was created. The new database now contains all the past and current plot data including a self tabulating feature that automatically calculates the inputs for our Fire Ecology Annual Report. The lack of staff has forced the employees in the Fuels/Fire effects crew to come up with innovative and time saving solutions that allowed us to do all the work needed without sacrificing quality. Here is a brief list of some of those accomplishments. - Updated all site history information and tied it to GIS fire history database. - Created a comprehensive database for an easy way to compare data collected at many different photopoints. - Created a database with every plant species ever documented in the Preserve and are currently attaching photos to it for quick identification references. - Began collecting 360° panoramic photos, in addition to typical N, S, E, and W views, and linked it in GIS so when the photopoint is clicked a 360° view is available for the user. - Pre and post burn forms were re-written to achieve a quicker and easier user experience. These results are tied back to the main database. We also maintain 4 weather stations that we perform all annual maintenance on. We have several sites around the preserve that we collect weekly fuel moistures from. We maintained all the fire reports and updated and error checked the WFMI, and WIMS for all the data since 1978. We recently started tracking the hydrology levels at 9 stations on the preserve and we have created a database for those stations that goes back to 2001. All the firefighters at Big Cypress National Preserve are suppression firefighters and prescribed firefighters regardless of their official title. We depend on each other for many things from monitoring to welding to digging handline.